The floor was covered with straw, which round the sides was
heaped in masses, that might serve as seats, but which at
that moment were used to support the heads and the arms of the
close-packed circle of men and women who kneeled on the floor.
Out of about thirty persons thus placed, perhaps half a dozen
were men. One of these, a handsome looking youth of eighteen
or twenty, kneeled just below the opening through which I looked.
His arm was encircling the neck of a young girl who knelt beside
him, with her hair hanging dishevelled upon her shoulders, and
her features working with the most violent agitation; soon after
they both fell forward on the straw, as if unable to endure in
any other attitude the burning eloquence of a tall grim figure
in black, who, standing erect in the centre, was uttering with
incredible vehemence an oration that seemed to hover between
praying and preaching; his arms hung stiff and immoveable by
his side, and he looked like an ill-constructed machine, set
in action by a movement so violent, as to threaten its own
destruction, so jerkingly, painfully, yet rapidly, did his
words tumble out; the kneeling circle ceasing not to call in
every variety of tone on the name of Jesus; accompanied with
sobs, groans, and a sort of low howling inexpressibly painful
to listen to. But my attention was speedily withdrawn from the
preacher, and the circle round him, by a figure which knelt
alone at some distance; it was a living image of Scott's
Macbriar, as young, as wild, and as terrible.
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